FanFic Fellowship Entry - The Farmer and the Skeleton

The following piece is inspired by the opening sequence of Skyrim, which shows what I believe to be the misunderstood end of Lokir “the thief”. It is something of a twisted comical tragedy. The concept was inspired by the webisodes of The Walking Dead, which chronicles the human lives of some of the zombies in the show. I wanted to look at how Lokir, who came from the farming village of Rorikstead, could ever be called a thief and what madness drove him to that life.

Without further ado, I present my FanFic fellowship entry; The Farmer, the Skeleton: The Tragedy of Lokir.

The sun beat down on the plains of Whiterun Hold but the temperatures remained pleasantly cool with the breeze blowing over the 7,000 Steps. The villagers throughout the plains of Whiterun worked busily to make good use of the temperate weather. Lokir the Farmer was just one of those villagers, working hard on his farm in Rorikstead, before the Gods saw fit to intervene.

Lokir took a moment to relax and wipe the sweat from his brow. The work had become far more difficult without his prized mare to till his field, doing it by hand was nearly impossible. Nearly a month had passed from the moment when an Imperial Guard had decided he liked the horse and decided to take it from Lokir. In that moment, he had understood why the Stormcloaks hated the Empire so much, but he wasn’t going to lose his life over it. On top of wanting to keep his life, the law allowed the Imperial soldiers to take what they needed, and Lokir was a law abiding man. In all his years he had never once stolen a coin from anyone. Lokir rubbed his blistered hands, wishing he could have his horse back for just another week.

Taking one last moment to survey his work and the work left to be done, Lokir lifted his bottle of mead and began to take a sip when the awful shrieking began. Lokir’s wife, Reldith, tore the silence of the morning with one of her usual storms of nagging, nearly causing him to lose his precious drink all over the tilled earth.

“Lokir, you lazy son of a mammoth, stop wasting the day and get back to work!”

Lokir regained his composure and began to explain his plight when Reldith cut him short. “I don’t want to hear it Lokir, if you were half the man Ennis is, you would have had this entire field plowed, sown, and harvested by now. Sometimes I wonder why I don’t just move in with him and help him on his farm. If a horse is so important, why don’t you just walk down to the stables at Whiterun and buy one?! Oh, that’s right, we’re poor because you’re so lazy!”

Lokir lowered his head and explained: “It is a long journey and with the Foresworn just up the road and the giants…”

Lokir never had a chance to finish as Reldith began moving her hand in an open and close motion, mocking Lokir’s words. “Oh giants, foresworn, and bears oh my!” Reldith mocked in a high-pitched voice. “Why don’t you just get Ennis to do the work for you, he’s a real man. He never would have let that Imperial Guard-Pig take his horse without a fight.”

“Oh no,” Reldith started, “if anyone around here is going to kill you, it is going to be me!”

Reldith continued to berate Lokir, never relenting for a moment. Lokir did what he always did, turning her off in his head and thinking of how he always wanted to be a blacksmith and live in Whiterun, forging steel for the Companions at Sky Forge.

Suddenly, something within Lokir changed. As with all men, he finally reached his breaking point. He had spent years with the woman while she went on and on about Ennis and his Gods cursed farm. She had always chided him that Ennis’ farmhouse was bigger, his crops grew taller, and he still had time to love (Lokir was always confused by that statement as Ennis was a single man). All the while Reldith refused to lend a hand around the farm, she was as useless as Lemkil’s daughters. Lokir had dreams and aspirations beyond this little farm. He had enough, this was the last straw.

“Look you lazy cow,” Lokir screamed, “I’m going to go find my horse and kill the man that took it! In the meantime, you are going to plow the field. If it’s not done when I get back, I swear I will stick both you and Ennis in that farmhouse and burn it to the ground!” Lokir hurled his tools at Reldith and stormed off towards the main road.

Reldith continued to berate him with words along the lines of “you couldn’t kill a skeever” and “you’ll stub your toe on tundra cotton and come home crying” until he was out of earshot.